Holiday Phone Call
by OkayDokey33
Summary: Sunflowyr one-shot. It's Christmas day, and Ren and Nora are about to decorate their very own Christmas tree as they spend the holiday at Beacon Academy, but before they can begin, Ren gets a very welcome phone call, which ends up not just being good for him, but also for everyone else involved. Spiritual successor to "A Casual Date".


"Hmm?" Ren uttered upon hearing his scroll vibrating furiously from across the room as he and Nora decorated their very own miniature Christmas tree in the middle of their dorm room within Beacon Academy, snow listlessly falling from outside of their window as they did. Ren turned to Nora and gave her a confused frown. "Who could that be?"

Nora simply frowned and shrugged. "Who knows?" Her face then lit up as she let out an excited gasp. "Maybe it's Jaune or Pyrrha calling in to wish us a merry Christmas!"

Before she could drop the easily breakable ornaments she had been holding and make a mad dash to answer Ren's scroll, Ren quickly and calmly stopped her. "It's my scroll, so it's my responsibility to answer it."

"Aw," Nora said, hanging her head and letting her shoulders droop in disappointment as she did.

Ren gave her an amused smile before laying down the ornaments he was holding and saying, "Keep decorating. If it really is Jaune or Pyrrha, then I'll let you in on the conversation, okay?"

Nora giggled before turning to Ren and giving him a dutiful salute. "Okey-dokey, Ren!" she cried.

As Nora went back to the task at hand, Ren briskly made his way towards his scroll, received the call, and calmly held it against his ear. "Hello?"

"Took you long enough," a familiar voice said. He could practically see her smirking on the other end. "Hey, you."

Ren couldn't help but smile. "Hey," he said with a chuckle.

"Psst!" Nora loudly hissed. "Ren! Who is it?"

Ren covered the lower part of his scroll and answered, "It's Yang," before placing his scroll back against his ear.

Nora nodded understandingly. "Oh." She then cupped a side of her mouth and screamed, "Hey, Yang! Merry Christmas!"

Yang chuckled. "Hey, Nora. Merry Christmas to you too."

"What?!" Nora cried, the sound from Ren's scroll having not been turned up loud enough for her to have heard what the other huntress had said.

"She said that she wishes you a merry Christmas," Ren said.

Nora nodded. "Oh." She then cupped her mouth again. "Thanks!"

"Nora," Ren scolded, "there's no need to yell. If you want to talk to Yang, I can just set my scroll to speaker mode and…."

Nora shook her head and waved her hand dismissingly. "Oh no! You two lover-birds go right on ahead! I won't interrupt!"

Ren raised an eyebrow warily. "Are you sure?" he asked.

Nora nodded. "Of course I am! Besides," she turned around and grinned obsessively at the miniature Christmas tree before her, "there's a Christmas tree that needs a-decoratin'!"

As Nora laughed maniacally, Ren shook his head and heaved out a weary sigh before turning his back to her and going back to privately answering Yang's call. "Still haven't decorated that tree yet, huh?" Yang asked.

Ren chuckled. "Nope." He glanced over his shoulder and watched as Nora quickly sped around the tree and placed whatever ornament she had onto it with reckless abandon.

"Well, that weird."

"Hmm? Why?"

"I don't know," Yang said as Ren heard her sit down on what was either her bed or a really springy couch. "I guess you just seem like the type of guy who would do it ahead of time, you know?"

Ren thought about it for a moment before nodding his head understandingly. "Yeah, I guess I kind of am. But me and Nora," he bashfully began to tilt his head and scratch the back of it, "we… kind of have this tradition…."

Yang giggled. "To decorate your Christmas trees at the last minute?"

Ren smiled. "Yeah. It's just that," he glanced back at Nora again, who was throwing too much Christmas confetti for their poor little tree to handle, "before we came to Beacon, Nora and I would've been lucky to find a tree at all, let alone decorate one." He heard Yang make a small, surprised gasp. "Usually we'd only find one on Christmas and decorate it as much as we could before it was over, you know?"

"Oh," Yang said. "Sorry, I had no idea."

"It's okay," Ren reassured her. "Neither did Jaune and Pyrrha."

"Still," he could hear Yang shift uncomfortably on whatever it was that she was sitting on, "do you want me to hang up? We can talk later if you want."

"We have plenty of other traditions, Yang. Missing out on one isn't going to ruin the holidays for us. And besides," he turned around and cringed at the half buried tree Nora continued to decorate, "I get the feeling that we're going to have to start over anyway."

Yang chuckled at this, knowing both Ren and Nora well enough to deduce what was going on back at Beacon without even having to ask her current boyfriend what exactly was going on. "Yeah, but still…."

Ren frowned. "Yang, is everything alright?"

"Hmm?" Yang asked absentmindedly. "Oh, yeah. Of course. Why wouldn't they be?"

"Well, it's just that… you're being oddly insistent about this."

Yang scoffed. "Are you saying that I'm never insistent?"

Ren shook his head, even though he knew full well that Yang wouldn't be able to see him do it. "No, but you're never THIS kind of insistent."

"…And what type of insistent are we talking about?"

"The sad kind?"

There was a brief silence between them before Ren heard Yang letting out a melancholic sigh and quietly say, "It's more of a guilty kind."

Ren's eyes widened in surprise. "A guilty kind?" he repeated incredulously. "Why?"

He could feel Yang shrugging sheepishly back at her place. "I don't know. It's just… ever since we started this relationship, I've been getting the feeling that I've been getting in between the two of you sometimes."

Ren let out a small and surprised gasp. "Of me and Nora?"

"Yeah," Yang answered. "You and Nora are like family to each other, and I feel like every time we go out and do something, just the two of us, I feel like I'm creating a wedge between the two of you, and I don't want that. I know what it's like to have wedges made between family members, whether they were intentional or not. It's… a terrible feeling. And sometimes, if feels like a part of you will never really recover, you know? I just don't want that to happen to you two."

"Oh, Yang," Yang heard Nora's voice softly say, "that's never going to happen."

Yang let out a surprised and embarrassed gasp. "N-Nora?!"

Nora smiled sadly on the other end. "The one and only," she replied somewhat cheerfully. "Ren handed me the scroll. Said that you wanted to talk to me and all." She then went back to having a concerned frown on her face. "Yang, we're friends. I could never feel so negatively about you to the point where you would be able to drive a wedge between me and Ren. We've been friends since forever! Why would either of us call that off over one of our love lives?"

"I… I don't know!" Yang said in frustration. "Look, just forget about it, okay? It was stupid."

"Yang, I can't do that. You're my friend too."

"Yeah, well… I don't want to talk about it!"

"Yang," Nora glanced quickly back at Ren, who was currently busy cleaning up the mess she had made while she had been decorating the Christmas tree before holding his scroll closer to her and saying in a hushed tone, "look, I get it. Maybe I sort of, kind of… like-like Ren, but I never had the courage to ask him out. You did. You deserve to be allowed to have this type of relationship with him, not me."

"What?! Nora, that's not true! You and Ren have known each other since, like, forever! If anyone deserves to be in a relationship with him first, it's you!"

Nora smiled sadly at this. "Yang… we both know that that's not how it works." Yang let out a surprised gasp upon experiencing first hand Nora's surprising maturity towards the situation. "Look, I know I've already said this to you before, but I'm going to say it again, okay? The two of you have my blessing. If I suddenly have a problem with it, then it's going to be on me, not you two." She then paused, before quietly adding, "And if anyone can make Ren happy, it's definitely going to be you. No question about it."

"Nora…."

"So cheer up, alright?" Nora asked cheerfully. "I mean, it IS Christmas, after all! And no one likes being sad on Christmas!"

After a brief and shocked pause, Yang let out a small laugh and said, "You got that right."

"So," Nora said, insinuatingly, "why exactly DID you take time to call us today?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yang said challengingly.

Nora shrugged. "I'm just saying, no one just makes a call, say, 'Merry Christmas', and then leave it at that." Nora smirked. "Come on, this IS Ren's scroll after all."

Yang laughed. "Believe it or not, Ruby and our dad are trying to make eggnog downstairs. Keyword being 'trying'."

Nora scoffed. "Your dad doesn't know how to make eggnog?"

"He does. He just doesn't know how to make the non-alcoholic kind. At least not the kind that still tastes good. Ruby's trying to help him out, but…," Yang shook her head, "well, she's definitely done worse. So since they're busy making a mess downstairs, I thought I'd kill some time and ring you guys up, you know?"

"Aw, that's so sweet of you, Yang!" Nora cried. "Ren and I usually never have anyone calling in on us on Christmas!" She then whispered, "But let's be honest, you probably wanted to call someone else a little bit more, didn't you?"

"Hey! You shut up, alright? Ren and I are way more mature than that and you know it!"

"If you say so," Nora sang. She then let out an excited gasp and asked, "Do you want to facetime?!"

Yang laughed. "Sounds like a plan."

"Oh, Ren," Nora sang, gaining said hunter's attention and succeeding in getting him to turn away from their tree for a moment, "look who wanted to see you!"

She held his scroll up to show Yang looking at him through it. She smiled warmly at him. "Hey there, stranger."

A small smile appeared onto Ren's usually stoic face. "Hey." He walked up to Nora, who handed him his scroll back, and held it closer to his face, examining his girlfriend from the other side. He chuckled. "You know, even with a little bit of bed head, your hair still looks really nice."

Yang laughed. "Oh, thanks! I facetime my boyfriend and the first thing he says to me is that he's surprised that I still look good even without tidying myself up first! I'll be the envy of all the girls in Beacon!"

Ren smirked. "Welcome to the club. I was a member of it a long time ago."

"Oh, trying to work your way back up again, are we?"

Ren cocked an eyebrow knowingly. "That depends. Is it working?"

Yang wagged her finger at him. "Don't you get cute," she playfully threatened.

"Yang!" Ren could hear Ruby cry out. "Come down! We're going to start opening presents now!"

A disappointed look appeared onto Yang's face. "Guess that's our cue."

Ren nodded. "Seems like."

Yang opened her mouth for a moment, but nothing came out of it at first. After closing it and chuckling bashfully at herself, she looked back at Ren through her scroll, smiled warmly at him, and tenderly said, "Love you."

Ren warmly smiled back. "I love you too." Both of them then let out a gasp of surprise as Nora held mistletoe from its stem over the screen of his scroll with a mischievous grin on her face. "N-Nora!"

"Aw, you two are just adorable!" Nora gushed. "Now kiss!" she demanded.

Ren could hear Yang chuckling from the other side of his scroll. "I don't think that's how it works, Nora." Just then he heard a surprised yelp coming from her end. "R-Ruby! What are you doing?!"

"Quick! Before dad comes up and finds out who you've been talking to all this time!" he heard Ruby cry.

"Well, yeah, but what are you doing?"

"I'm hanging mistletoe on your side of the scroll for you!" Ruby answered. "Now, there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it!"

"Alright, Ruby!" Nora cried.

Ren sighed and shook his head. "I'm still not entirely sure that this is how it works."

"The jury has spoken, mister!" Ruby cried.

Ren cocked an eyebrow in surprise. "What jury?" he asked.

"This jury!" Nora answered, pointing confidently to herself with her thumb. "And don't you make me take out my hammer!"

"I'm pretty sure it's called a gavel, Nora," Yang said.

"Hammer, gavel, mallet, who cares!" Ruby said. "Just kiss already, before dad comes up and makes things awkward!"

Yang laughed before gently pushing Ruby's mistletoe away from her screen. "Well, Ren, rules are rules." She then puckered up and began to draw her scroll closer and closer to her lips.

Ren blushed and let out a weary sigh. "I guess," he said, and slowly followed suit. They both let out audible kissing noises to alert the other person that their lips had touched their screens and held it like that for a couple of seconds before backing away from them with bright red blushes and embarrassed grins on their faces.

"Oh my gosh!" Ruby gushed. "You guys are so cute I'm going to die!"

"Don't you dare!" Yang warned, covering her face with one of her hands to cover up the blush and grin that refused to go away, no matter how hard she tried to make them disappear.

"Hey, what's the big hold up up there?" somebody cried on Yang and Ruby's side. It must've been their dad.

"Oh my gosh!" Ruby cried. "We took too long!" She ran to the door and signaled for her sister to hurry. "Wrap it up, you two!" She then quickly left Yang's room and ran downstairs, possibly to stall and give Yang and Ren some time.

Yang turned back towards her scroll and smiled. "Merry Christmas, Ren. Nora."

Ren smiled back. "Merry Christmas to you too, Yang Xiao Long."

Nora's head popped up from behind him. "Merry Christmas Yang!" she cried.

It was then that Yang finally ended her call. When Ren's scroll finally went black, he let out a dreamy sigh before turning to Nora and saying, "Thank you, Nora."

Nora's eyes widened in surprise. "Huh? For what?"

"For being so supportive… of us," Ren answered. "This type of relationship is still pretty new to the both of us, so we definitely need the help."

Nora smiled warmly at him. "What are friends for, Ren?"

Ren returned the favor. "You're right."

"Of course I'm right!" Nora cried, roughly slapping the back of Ren's back as she did, causing him to stumble forward a bit. "Now, let's get started on making those Christmas pancakes! I'm starved!"

"Hold on," Ren said. "First, we've got to decorate the tree again."

Nora gave him a small, disappointed pout. "Aw, but why?"

Ren sighed. "Nora," he indicated towards the currently buried miniature tree in their dorm room, "it doesn't even look like a tree anymore."

"I know, right?!" Nora cried. "It's now a tree completely covered in shiny ornaments, and sparkles, and tinsel, and…."

Ren groaned. "Nora…."

* * *

Author's Note: My Christmas present to the RWBY and Sunflowyr fandom. Have a merry Christmas guys! And a happy new year as well!


End file.
